Shacking up together.

Guess what has two thumbs and still wakes up twice a night? –> This guy! <–

Sweet Chuck turns six months old next week, and we’re still getting up sometime around midnight and around 5am to hang out with each other.  Maybe that’s not too bad, considering friends of mine are thrilled when their 18-month-old *only* gets up four times per night.  Still, Seabass spoiled me with his extraordinary 12-hour stretches around five months of age.  Poor Sweet Chuck is living under some seriously high expectations. I mean, who goes for 12 hours without a snack?

The kids started sharing a room when Sweet Chuck hit four months.  Like most changes with kids, getting the two of them to share a room was, at first, so painful I thought I might die, and shortly thereafter, completely fine.  For the first couple of nights, when I was getting up on the hour to console one or both of them, I tried to remember that most kids across history and the rest of the world share rooms.  Usually, that bit of information inspired me to push through the discomfort [total carnage] of sleep deprivation [zombie madness].  But sometimes, it just made me angry that our house wasn’t bigger, like any true-blooded, privileged American’s house should be.

Jake calls this the ‘retired gangsters in Florida” look.

Now, however, the whole kids-sharing-a-room thing is ritual.  And it’s downright incredible what Seabass sleeps through.  We’ve been “sleep training” (such a clever euphemism for something so soul-sucking) for weeks and even when Sweet Chuck is howling that she wants to party at 3:30am, her brother just lays there, fast asleep.  Amazing.

Of course, this could all change when Seabass graduates to a toddler bed.  That’s right: he’s almost three years old and he’s still in a crib.  Go ahead, look astonished.  Show your incredulity.

And then secretly reminisce about the good old days when your kid was contained for several hours at a stretch.

Better get used to these bars, kid.